


Standing Still

by DestinyLeane



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22035730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestinyLeane/pseuds/DestinyLeane
Summary: Things change. All the time, everything was changing and Steven had no idea what to do about it, homeworld was safe, free, gems were moving to new things, the suspects broke up, Lars went back to space.and he was alone. And afraid. everyone was leaving and moving and he was standing still.until she came.(I got this fic au idea off tumblr from user wolfinshipclothing)
Relationships: Spinel/Steven Universe
Comments: 18
Kudos: 94





	1. Chapter 1

Steven smiled, and pulled at his shirt collar, clearing his throat to speak to the small crowd. 

"It's really great you could all come to Little Homeschools Graduation ceremony." He glanced at the gems to his left, Padparadcha, the Rutiles, Rhodonite and Flourite were the first to graduate, it made sense, seeing as Lars was intent on heading out to space again.  
That notion sat uncomfortably in his stomach, making it hard for him to finish his short and awkward speech. 

This was good though! Progress was being made! He knew that, everything was good, everyone was safe, and happy and people were moving on. 

Without him. 

Those two little words creeped up in the back of his mind, more often now than ever in the past. 

Steven hopped down from the stage to visit with the others, catching sight of Sadie. 

"Hey, Sadie...hey, Shep?" He slowed, suddenly remembering that Sadie was moving on too, dating Shep, breaking up the band..Lars said it was fine, and Steven wanted to believe it. Maybe only because he personally liked the idea of Sadie and Lars.

Things happen without you though. And in those two years in space, and the near constant work at Little Homeschool, a lot of things happened without Steven.

"Hey Steven, the graduation went well." Sadie waved and smiled, bringing back a little of that light in his eyes, if for just a moment. 

"Yeah, heh, it did.." he laughed a little more nervously than intended. "I know you and the band broke up, but I was wondering if you could do one last show for the graduation?" 

"Nobody brought their equipment- but, Shep and I have been working on music together, we could play a song for you guys?" She offered, wincing slightly at Steven's more than forced smile. 

"That's great! It would be awesome." He replied through somewhat gritted teeth before turning away to visit with a few of the other guests when he caught sight of one of his sure constants. 

"Connie!" He called, catching the girls attention and running toward her. She put away her book and grinned. 

"Hey, Steven! The graduation went really well, it's great to see the off colors moving to new things." She patted the bench next to her for him to sit down and Steven graciously obliged. 

"Yeah, I'm really proud of everyone for coming together for this, things are going great." He lied gently, Connie nodded and nudged him with her shoulder playfully. 

"Its pretty exciting, I've been doing new stuff too, I got a scholarship to Keystone University, I think after this semester ends I'll be moving to their dorms."  
Her words turned to static in his head.  
What? 

"R-really?" He faltered, feeling a sinking pit in his chest that grew just a little larger than he could handle. 

"Yeah! I'm really excited! Its gonna be a whole new experience for me!" Still static, like a garbled mess that he didn't really want to untangle. 

"That- that's great." He replied, trying to maintain some semblance of enthusiasm for his friend. 

Her too?  
Even Connie was drifting away, doing new things. 

"What about you?" That pulled him from the static, forcing him back into his body to contemplate whatever had become of him.  
What about him? 

What was left?  
He had his happily ever after. He saved the galaxy, he brought a new era, even the gems that opposed him were relatively easy to sway. The gems were becoming their own people, Little Homeschool was practically running itself, aside from Steven principal ling everything from the sidelines, even the dionds cooled down on their overbearing nature.  
What is supposed to do now? 

"I..um..I haven't quite figured it out yet." He admitted with a more than nervous laugh. Connie nodded and offered that reassuring smile that always seemed to calm his nerves. A reassuring smile that would be moving to another state and leaving him behind. 

"Don't worry about it, at least you don't have to fix your moms mistakes anymore, or save everything over and over again." But, that was what he was good at. It what he was best at. 

"Right." What a hollow answer. Steven averted his eyes, choosing to look up into the night sky instead of at Connie's. 

Right.


	2. Stagnance

She stared forward, watching the broken message replay over and over, skipping and stopping with static intermissions that barely brought any semblance of comfort in the constant screaming in her head. 

It was screaming and silence all at once and she didn't know what to do. Gone. 

Pink was gone now and and she was standing here in the same spot for thousands of years for what? To be alone and not even able to see how everything had moved on without her?   
Stupidly thinking that she would come back? 

Her eyes burned, maybe from staring at the warp pad, but this wasn't a tired kind of burn. It was a salty, blurry burn that made it hard to see.   
Something hurt inside her. Growing larger, becoming all consuming, her face contorted ever so slowly, revealing to the lacking spectator just how twisted up inside she felt. 

Spinel ripped her feet up from the ground, almost hard enough to poof her from the pulling resistance of overgrowth. She stumbled forward onto the ground in a heap of overly relaxed limbs, slinking forward a little and turning her face in the dirt to get one last little look at the universal message.   
She heaved a ragged breath, and dug her fingers into the ground with a howl of angst.  
She was left here. Alone. What did she do wrong? Why did she leave her? She was supposed to be perfect! She was perfect. 

She was supposed to be. 

But what was she now? Some kind of monster? Some dirty, scarred and discarded plaything.  
She lost her, she lost everything. Lost time, lost her friend, and it wasn't anyone's fault but Pink's and Pink was gone.   
She was gone and there was no retribution to be made. 

Spinel sat upright and stared a little longer at the broken message. It must have been playing for ages but she didn't care. There was something lost in her that made it so easy to forget how time passed.   
But the registration still occurred, and she was still alone and the stupid, terrible message was still playing.   
She was sad, and mad. So horrifically angry, furious that she had lost so much without even knowing it. That so many things happened without her.   
Her throat ached, everything ached and she writhed in terrible agony at the pain. Slamming ballooned fists into the dirt and kicking and screaming and yanking at her hair, tearing what was left of herself apart. 

Broken, that's what she was, completely and utterly shattered without ever being in peices. What is that? 

Spinel gulped, and crawled toward the stagnant and grimy pond that had become more of a reflection pool than anything else, she peered down at herself. Gazing into those tear red eyes and the tracks that tinted her skin slightly lighter from the dirt on her face. Her messy hair and trembling, loose self. Shed leaned over the edge and plummeted down into the murky waters, hoping that if she stopped holding onto herself she could sink into the depths and never return.

If she couldn't dissapear, she could just stay there in the dark and muddy water and no one would even know she existed. And she could imagine a way to fix everything. Make everything the way it used to be. 

So she let go. The smoke and dust turned into little pink bubbles that popped when they reached the surface, and the heart shaped stone drifted into the dark where she could pretend she didn't exist- at least for a little while. 

There is a type of feeling, a type of rage and pain and anguish that you can't escape no matter how much you yearn to. Spinel couldn't run from it, and even despite that darkness and that emptiness, she was still owned and consumed by that type of feeling.

There were things she could do, to make everything better. Pink started her colony only 6000 years ago. She had things in places that she only ever visited on occasion and Spinel knew where those things were. Make everything the way it used to be. 

She just needed a few things to catch that boys attention.


	3. Water Your Plants

"Okay Connie, I home you like your new home!" Steven smiled, setting down the bell flower in its newly painted and larger pot. "You're not going to college any time soon." 

His smile faded just a little, so to escape that pit he directed his attention toward his hydrangea. 

"Sadie, you and the shrubscepts are looking great- lemme prune those dead buds." He pretended, clipping the little dried and dead leaves and spent flowers off with his small scissors. Steven let out a small sigh. 

"No one here is going to leave me, hah, cause you're all plants!" He laughed, ignoring the growing unease of his words.   
This was better. This was fixing things. He was helping these plants and flowers grow, he didn't even need to use his powers to help them. And Little Homeschool was going great- he didn't need to be there as often. He didn't need to be there during break. 

He had nothing else to do anyways.   
He could do this. 

"Alright guys, I'm headed to the store to get some more potting soil, don't go anywhere without me." He glanced around at his plants and their silent reply before chuckling softly and backing out of the greenhouse. 

Steven rolled his cart through the garden area of the store, stopping every so often to see which soil would be best for his hibiscus tree. It kept his mind somewhat off his dwindling social life.   
Lars had gone with the Off Colors, Sadie and Shep moved to Empire city, the rest of the suspects had started working, Sourcream even got a record label doing edm. Connie moved to the dorms.. it was peaceful. 

So to fill the void they left he took up the hobby. 

Steven grabbed his soil and set it in the back trunk of the dandai, humming softly to himself and trying to think of new plants he could buy. Some spider lilies would be a nice addition, and maybe a couple forget me nots. Perhaps some rose's? No.   
His attention was pulled away by a growing shadow, something that was unusual for the summertime.   
Steven peered upward, as some ginormous thing crested over the clouds, and hovered near the lighthouse.   
It was an injector. An abnormally large injector. Something he needed to stop. 

He slammed the trunk shut and jumped into the driver seat, hitting the gas and veering toward the hillside to meet up with the gems who had gathered just below the hourglass contraption. 

"What's going on!" Steven called, sprinting toward the gems to see what they made of everything. 

"I don't know! Garnet told us to go outside and it just showed up!" Pearl exclaimed, glancing up at the silhouette that stood at the top of the machine, staring down at them. 

"Hey!" They called, "are you Steven Universe?"

That was new. Steven half expected this person, or gem as it was the more likely truth, to address him as his Rose, or even Pink.

"Um..yes?" He watched the gem nod to herself.

"Perfect." The gem twirled up her finger and blew into it like a horn, causing the giant hourglass injector to shake and stir, opening up and releasing a giant needle and tongs that promptly stabbed itself into the ground. 

"Hey! Nice park job, dingus!" Amethyst griped angrily.   
The gem leapt down from their spot, to a lower place, more visible on the injector, allowing the gems and Steven to see her. She was pink, which really only meant one thing to Steven. She was in some way, related to his mother and likely mad for something she did and came to take it out on him and his friends. 

"Well, well, well, well! Lemme get a look at the menagerie!" She chuckled, cupping her eye and stretching it out like an almost grotesque spyglass. "You must be Amethyst, and Garnet, and Pink Diamond's Pearl! Huh, she took you with her! Isn't that just...swell." 

She gritted her teeth through a pained laugh at Pearl's slow recognition. 

Steven was still in the process of working what was going on over in his mind. This gem came to upturn everything he had worked for. She was likely intent of killing him. He should be upset. He should be mad right? So why wasn't he?


	4. The Potential

It worked. Well enough at least. The package made her bluff far more believable than she initially thought. It would only cause superficial damage to Pink's precious colony and offer her time to really root out this frankly ridiculous reach of a plan. If it worked though...things would go back to the way they used to be. She could be loved again. She wouldn't lose anyone again. 

"I think this might be a misunderstanding- I brought peace to the galaxy a year a-" 

"Yeah, yeah yeah! I've heard!" She bit back from her high spot, feeling that deep seeded all consuming rage burn a little hotter. Just get rid of it. Get rid of that and things can go back. You won't be bad, you won't be alone, just fix things and make everything better. 

"I've had your little message to the universe on loop!" She growled, stretching and kicking back the boy.   
Steven stumbled backward but caught himself from falling and returned to stance, pulling out his sheild.   
Spinel laughed at the display, it was funny, really- the trouble Pink went through to abandon her. It was infuriating. But all that would end soon if things went the way she wanted them to. 

"I just love that part-" 

"Wait, wait, wait, wait- I sent that message out last year!" Steven cut her off, shaking his head in mild disbelief and inadvertently causing that rage she kept buried deep down to boil over with a forced little laugh. 

"I needed time to think!" She replied, coiling up to vault herself down to meet him face to face. Steven held back a little laugh, it was already more than refreshing to have some small return to his twisted normalcy, but this gem was clearly out of the loop. 

"And you thought getting a giant injector and attacking me was the best plan of action?" The sarcasm in his voice made the gem fume with anger as he blocked her punches. 

Spinel paused, for just a moment, flashing a sly grin at the boy before pulling a small rod out of her gem and expanding it into a glowing scythe. She swiped at him quickly, glitching his sheild away before attacking once more. 

Steven dodged her attack, and rolled out of her range, at least for a little while as she stretched out her arm and caught his jacket with the end of her scythe, yanking him backward and forcing him to catch the shaft of the scythe before he could be hit. 

Spinel leaned in, pushing against him with the scythe. 

"That wasn't the plan."

Steven jerked the scythe away from the gem and stumbled backward, causing the gem to cackle hysterically as she swerved and slithered around to deal another blow. He swung the scythe back, cleaving her in two with a single blow.   
She grinned widely, expectantly, before exploding into a cloud of pink smoke. The heart shaped gemstone clacked to the ground, and Steven retracted the scythe. 

"That was unusually fast." Amethyst mentioned, putting away her whip. 

"Yeah." Steven turned toward the injector as it seeped its poison into the earth, causing the surrounding plants to shrivel and die. "We should probably do something about that."


	5. Little Broken Heart

"You're not going to bubble her?" Pearl rounded the table where Steven set down the gemstone and sat down next to him. 

"No, I think I might be able to talk to her when she comes back." It was half a truth. Honestly, his curiosity was piqued by the gems flagrantly subpar attack and her almost willingness to fail at her plan. "Who did you say she was?" 

"Spinel, she was Pink's playmate. They used to play in their garden." Pearl answered, taking a moment to look at the still unformed gem on the table. "That was 6000 years ago though."

Steven picked up the gemstone and turned it in his hands, inspecting it closely, it was one of the largest he had seen, shaped like a heart. Whatever his mom did to make her upset could be fixed. He was particularly good at it, and it wouldn't take long to turn her around.   
Then what?   
Things would go back to normal, and everything would start moving again. 

"I'm...I'm gonna check on the injector." Steven sighed softly, and pocketed the gemstone for safe keeping in case she reformed soon the left for the hillside.

"How are things coming along, Peridot?" Steven drifted down next to the green gem as she stuffed samples of the earth into a makeshift microwave scanner. 

"It looks like the poison damages organic material and everytime we try to move it, it digs deeper into the crust." She answered, typing something into her tablet before glancing up to look at him. "I'm having Lapis dilute the liquid with massive quantities of water to counteract the poison." 

"So, we can get rid of it?" Steven asked, flipping the gemstone in his pocket. Peridot nodded briskly. 

"With enough water in the solution, Lapis can control the poison and lift the injector from the inside." She explained. 

That was good. Things would be fixed faster than he expected, no one really got hurt. Spinel hadn't reformed yet, everything was working itself out with barely any of his help. It was great. 

He was grateful. It was nice that he wasn't really needed. 

"Alright..well, I guess-" Steven cut himself off, as a burning sensation began growing around his waist.   
The gem! 

He quickly pulled the stone out of his pocket and let go of it as it levitated out of his hands.   
Peridot and Lapis pulled their attention away from the injector and toward the gem as she began to reform with a giddy giggle. 

"It's so good to meet you!" The springy gem laughed, immediately wrapping her arms around Steven and tackling him in a tangle of limbs. 

"Wow, I don't think I've ever seen you turn someone around that fast." Lapis remarked quietly.   
Steven pushed the gem off of him and stared down at her in all her pink giggly joy. 

"She was not like this before." He explained, holding her at arms length while she tried to pull him into another hug. It didn't really work, and she quickly just coiled her arms around him to compensate for the closeness. "She was a lot angrier, uh- hey!" 

Spinel had relinquished her grip on Steven and turned her attention toward the scythe weapon in his pocket, quickly fiddling it out to play. 

"What's this?" She inspected the thing, pressing the button on the side and causing it to expand. 

"It's dangerous!" Steven gasped, twisting it out of her hands and quickly turning the thing back off.   
Spinel cocked her head slightly and nodded. 

"Okay best friend!" She replied, turning her gaze upward toward the injector and bouncing with new intrigue. "Ooh, what's that? It sure is big, you wanna climb it?" 

What? 

"You-you don't remember?" Steven shook his head in disbelief, did she seriously not remember what she did? "You put that there!" 

"I did?" Spinel's bouncing slowed just slightly, "I think I'd remember if I put a big thing like that here, silly." 

The pink gem giggled ecstatically, much to Steven's annoyance. He pressed his fingers into his temples, trying to gather some kind of understanding of the situation. Steven pulled in a reluctant breath before addressing the bobbing gem. 

"So, you don't remember anything? You said you had a plan, wh- what was your plan? Was this it?" He grappled with the concept itself, the cause. Spinel blinked dumbly, offering an innocent smile.

"You have no idea what I'm talking about do you?" Steven huffed, suppressing his anger for the time being. At least the injector issue was getting fixed.


	6. THIS FIC IS ON HIATUS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THIS FIC IS ON HIATUS

Hey everyone, I'm sorry I haven't updated anything in a while, I'm currently writing an original work titles Caring For Your Clown on Wattpad.   
In effort to focus on that story I am announcing a hiatus for all my fanfiction works until I'm completed with the book. You are welcome to read it as I write, or read my other fics on here or Wattpad. 

You can find me @DestinyLeane on that site as well.


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